The “Tape Revival” has always rubbed me the wrong way – it lacks the nostalgia and audio quality of vinyl, and feels more exclusive and willfully inconvenient than anything else. That being said, I’m all for alternative means of disseminating music. In that light, Nicolas Jaar’s record label Clown & Sunset Aesthetics recently released the Prism, a compilation housed in a small aluminum cube, with two headphone jacks (for sharing!).
I like the idea of being forced to sit still and pay attention to the music at hand (not to mention the music I paid $40 to listen to via an aluminum box), especially when the music at hand demands a little more attention. It shouldn’t be a surprise that a label named Clown & Sunset Aesthetics isn’t releasing sugary pop jams, and the fact that the songs are “mostly unreleased” probably means the stationary music player is all the more useful for one’s attention span.
